[enkid]

Countries that have that capability can't shoot down 40000 of them.

[sergeykish]

A few hits would provide enough junk for runaway process

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

[marvin]

I don't think a country with space capability is seriously considering making orbit useless over censorship. That'd be like shooting yourself in the foot right after you've trained for a marathon, in order to ingratiate yourself with firearms manufacturers.

[sergeykish]

And private company would not consider such risk either. Like with nuclear weapon ability to shoot is enough. Funny how it works with

s/country/private company/

s/space/nuclear/, s/orbit/land/

[throw1234651234]

If this becomes a thing, they will put a laser on a satellite and call it a day. All of the big 3 (military, not economically, you know who I am talking about) can do this easily.

edit: In response to below - they are putting SHORAD lasers on Strykers soon. Things have become a lot more compact.

[est31]

High powered lasers on an aircraft carrier work because it has a nuclear power plant onboard. How will you launch a nuclear power plant into space?

Note that the response to star wars contributed to the Soviet Union's bankruptcy :).

[Enginerrrd]

Depends on duty cycle. It may only need enough power for a couple of big bursts. Chemical lasers might work quite well here if you can address temperature fluctuation issues. The power output can be sufficiently massive with a relatively compact storage of that power. The downside is just that they can't be easily recharged.

[ClumsyPilot]

Soviet union had nuclear powered radar sattelites for reconnaissance, with a real reactor onboard, not RTG. it's definately doable.

But the whole point of a laser is that you don't need to put it in space, it could be a large facility on the ground.

Main considerations are political impact, not technical feasability.

As for Soviet bancrupcy, impact of Chernobyl was definately much larger than space program shenanigans.